2 weeks Ago By Michael Kozlowski
Amazon Kindle Vella is going to in February 2025. The company announced the closure of the leading Vella site. Amazon disclosed that the program did not catch on as they had hoped.
After the program closes, all the stories and episodes you have read or unlocked with tokens will remain in your library in the free Kindle app on iOS and Android. When the service closes, Amazon says it will automatically credit users’ account balances with an Amazon.com gift card equal to the value of their remaining tokens.
launched in the United States in 2021. It was a mobile-first, interactive reading experience for serialized stories. Kindle Vella stories are published one short episode at a time, each ranging from 600 to 5,000 words—and the first three episodes of every story are free.
Stories contain thousands of episodes, and new episodes are published regularly. Although the first few stories are free, you must buy tokens to continue reading. They can be purchased for as little as $1.
99 for 200 tokens to $14.99 for 1700 tokens, around 34 episodes. The platform has a social component, where readers can talk to the author using author notes.
Readers can leave a Thumbs Up for any episode they like. Once a week, readers who have purchased Tokens will receive a Fave award for the story they enjoyed most that week. Amazon will then feature stories with the most Faves in the Kindle Vella store.
This will hopefully let the best authors and stories rise to the top and provide users with quality content. Authors could submit Kindle Vella stories via the Kindle Direct Publishing system. They would earn 50% of what readers spend on the Tokens to unlock their story’s episodes.
They were also eligible for a bonus based on customer activity and engagement. Authors can track Kindle Vella royalty earnings, story likes, and episodes read in the in our KDP Reports. I am happy that this program is going to die.
I don’t know anyone on Good e-Reader who has used it, and our community represents hardcore readers. I think it’s a poor business model. If you want to read serialized stories from Indy authors, why not use one of the many free services, such as Wattpad? Kindle Vella doesn’t offer anything of significant value to readers that can’t be found elsewhere.
Which is why it failed Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
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